fiction
by rhymeless
Summary: do you wonder what it's like, living in a permanent imagination? sleeping to escape reality, but you like it like that.


Three weeks ago today, wasn't it, Blues?   
  
//Yes, Lord Chaud.//  
  
When the little... brat... defeated the World Three all by himself. How cute. But we know better. Such a sloppy job, leaving backups floating in cyberspace. Tche. He should have destroyed the servers completely. What was evil will always be evil.  
  
//Yes, Lord Chaud. Always.//  
  
---  
  
Blues stood near the exit, staring at the navi on the other end, dangerously close to the edge. The last backup file. The last Elecman.EXE. He'd killed the rest, according to Lord Chaud's orders... all but one.  
  
"Blues-san." Elec's voice was soft and quiet, different from what he'd expected. "You've come to kill me, haven't you?"  
  
"..." Blues nodded because he did not know what words were required of him. He knew Elec could see him, anyway, even though his back was to him.  
  
"Sou ka..." Elec glanced upward. Were he human and in the "real world," one might think he was looking up at heaven. But there was no heaven for navis. There was nowhere to go... when they died. "Do you know what it's like?"  
  
Blues turned his head. "What is what like." It wasn't a question. Blues didn't ask questions, he made statements. That was how he'd been designed, after all.  
  
"You must know." Elec faced him, and in his eyes there was something amiss... He was smiling, ever so slightly. A small, bittersweet smile. "What it's like to be a slave to your master's imagination." There was silence on the other end. "Haven't you ever wondered? This... is the way I was made. I can no more disobey my master than you can yours..."  
  
"And your master has made you evil. You must be exterminated." He spoke with a cold, resolute tone... but Elec knew better.  
  
"You don't want to do it, do you? Wouldn't you like to be... free?"  
  
There was no response.  
  
Elec turned away again, staring at the vast, empty reaches of cyberspace. "Don't you ever wonder what it would be like to do something because you wanted to... not because you were programmed to?"  
  
"I obey my master." But there was an unfamiliar sensation inside of him. Anger? Sadness? Rebellion? What were these things to a navi who had not been made to feel emotion?  
  
"I shouldn't expect more than that. He made you for total subservience. Maybe that's why... Rock... always wins? He has something special, but it's not a special program... Haven't you noticed? He acts on his own. He has... freedom."  
  
Blues raised his saber. "I am sorry."  
  
"Don't be. But tell me, what happens when we die?"  
  
The answer was rehearsed, like a page out of a textbook. "Backup files are created for the instance in which a Navi is deleted..."  
  
"No, I don't mean when we're deleted. I've been there. I know what it's like. I mean, when we die?" Silence. "You didn't think of that? I'm... the last. Master gave up on me after my defeat at the hands of a /civilian/ navi. He threw away the backups that were left and... I am the only one left. You've killed the others." He turned around again, and suddenly seemed so much closer. "I don't want to die. But if this is how it must end, I suppose... it can't be helped."  
  
Battle program execute...  
  
"Go ahead, Blues. Obey your master. Kill me."  
  
Why was he hesitating? Why? His orders had been specific. Find the remaining World Three viruses, and kill them. Why had it been so much easier to kill them when they resisted?  
  
When Blues did not move for a long time, Elec smiled. "What's wrong? You... don't want to do it, do you?"  
  
"..."  
  
"Should I do it myself, if you will not? After all, 'what was evil will always be evil,' is that right? I am a menace to society. I must be exterminated."  
  
"Stop mocking me," Blues growled, not looking at him.  
  
"I'm sorry." And Elec was, too. He was so sincere, so honest... so strange. Not like any other navi he'd ever known... "I suppose I should welcome death. I'm alone, outcasted. My master has abandoned me; no one will take me in. I shall not... /exist/ any longer." Blues still said nothing. "Do you wish that I would exist? Tell me, Blues... will you miss me when I'm gone?"  
  
"...I've never met a navi like you. This is true. Will I miss you? I don't know, Elec. I... don't... know..." But that was illogical. He was supposed to know. Failing that, he was supposed to figure it out.  
  
"That's all I wanted to know, Blues-san."  
  
He plunged his saber into the power core on his chest, holding it there for a moment, because as illogical as it was... he didn't know what to do.  
  
Elec smiled at him.  
  
He pulled the saber out.  
  
And Elec died.  
  
It was a curious thing. When a navi was deleted, they immediately faded away, sometimes with a pre-programmed explosion graphic. But his body lay there for a while, the smile still on his face, eyes wide and unseeing. After a time he faded, from his feet up, and his smile was the last thing to go.  
  
His beautiful smile.  
  
//Blues? Are you done yet?//  
  
He paused.  
  
"Yes, Lord Chaud. That... was the last."  
  
//Good. Then jack out. I swear I could eat a horse...//  
  
"Yes, Lord Chaud."  
  
jacking out...  
jack out successful  
goodbye, blues  
---  
"fiction" © orgy 


End file.
